Spatio-Temporal Change of County Vegetation Net Primary Productivity in Qinghai Silk Road region

Abstract

As one of the most prosperous arteries of the Silk Road and a transit point for trade between East and West, Qinghai Silk Road is an important part of the "One Belt, One Road", and remote sensing monitoring of its vegetation is a crucial part of the ecological study of the Silk Road. In this paper, we use MODIS high-resolution remote sensing images and meteorological data in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 to simulate the spatial and temporal changes of vegetation productivity at the county scale along the Silk Road in Qinghai Province with the aid of GIS and RS technology. The results show that the vegetation productivity in the Qinghai Silk Road area of the Silk Road showed a spatial pattern of high in the east and low in the west over the past 15 years, with the highest NPP of 163.09 g C/m2 in Datong County and the lowest NPP of 55.00 g C/m2 in Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and the annual average NPP of 86.99 g C/m2; the high values of NPP during the year were concentrated in June to August; interannually, NPP showed a fluctuating growth trend from 2000 to 2015 in general, with a decreasing trend from 2000 to 2005, and an obvious increasing trend from 2005 to 2015, with a maximum value of 327.943 g C/m2, a net increase of 448,885 km2 and a decrease of 24,968 km2, indicating that the vegetation growth in the Qinghai Silk Road area of the Silk Road has been improved.